6 SIGNS YOUR SCOTTISH FAMILY MARRIED INTO THE CHEROKEE

6 Signs Your Scottish Family Married Into the Cherokee — and the piece of Cherokee law that explains why it happened thousands of times. Cherokee society was matrilineal: you belonged to your mother's clan. So a Scottish trader who married a Cherokee woman had children who were Cherokee by the only rule that mattered, carrying his European surname. That is why Ross, Adair, Vann, Rogers, Ward, Hicks, Grant, McIntosh and Lowrey are real Cherokee surnames and ordinary Scottish ones at the same time — and why a Cherokee great-grandmother is plausible where a Cherokee great-grandfather with a Scottish name usually is not. Here are 6 things you can check. START WITH NANYEHI. The most influential Cherokee woman of her century has an English surname carved on her grave. The Cherokee called her Ghighau, Beloved Woman, after she took up her dead husband's rifle at Taliwa and led the charge that won the battle. She married a trader named Bryant Ward, and history knows her as Nancy Ward. The name on the stone is his. THE LAW BEHIND IT. Seven clans, membership through the mother. A man had no clan to give. A trader who married in gained relatives obliged to protect him and a standing in the deerskin trade no unmarried white man could buy. This is how the trade worked, for the better part of a century. SIGN 1 — THE CHEROKEE ANCESTOR IS A WOMAN. The Cherokee line comes down through a mother, the Scottish surname through a father. A story naming a Cherokee great-grandfather while you carry Ross or Grant has the sexes reversed. The princess fails too: there was no hereditary royalty for a princess to be the daughter of. SIGN 2 — A SCOTTISH SURNAME IN CHEROKEE RECORDS. Ross came from Daniel Ross, whose son John became Principal Chief and led the Nation through removal. Adair came from a trader out of the north of Ireland who wrote a book on the southeastern nations in 1775. Vann came from a Scottish trader whose descendants built one of the wealthiest households in the Nation. SIGN 3 — INSIDE THE BORDERS BEFORE 1838. North Georgia, east Tennessee, far western North Carolina, northeastern Alabama. A family in Pennsylvania or the Carolina lowcountry in 1820 was 400 miles away. Land that was Cherokee in 1770 was Georgia by 1820. SIGN 4 — A TRADE, NOT A FARM. Traders, interpreters, blacksmiths, packhorse men, ferry keepers — men the towns had a use for, where ordinary settlers were the problem. Interpreter especially — a white man who spoke Cherokee had almost always learned it inside a family. SIGN 5 — THE FAMILY SPLITS IN 1838. Some went west. Some hid in the mountains and became the Eastern Band. Some with a white father and a European name stayed and were counted as white. Look for a line that vanishes from Georgia records and reappears in Indian Territory. SIGN 6 — TWO GOVERNMENTS, ONE FAMILY. The strongest sign, and the one nobody checks. The 1835 roll of Cherokee households east of the Mississippi, the claims filed for lost property, the 1852 census in Indian Territory. A Scottish name in both, same decade and county, is a family with a foot in each world. AND A DATE PROBLEM. The window is roughly 1720 to 1820. After removal it closes, so an ancestor born in the 1850s in Missouri or Texas has the arithmetic against them. None of these prove anything. Plausible is not descent, and descent is not citizenship. Citizenship in the Cherokee Nation, the United Keetoowah Band or the Eastern Band is decided by those nations, under their own law. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Beloved Woman With an English Name on Her Grave 1:17 The Cherokee Law That Explains All of This 2:27 One: The Cherokee Ancestor Is a Woman 4:01 Two: A Scottish Surname in Cherokee Records 5:25 Three: Were You Inside the Borders Before 1838? 6:33 Four: A Trade, Not a Farm 7:07 Five: The Family Splits in 1838 8:38 Six: Two Governments, One Family 9:49 The Seventh Thing: Your Date Problem 10:46 What These Signs Cannot Tell You 12:47 The Name on the Stone Is His #Cherokee #CherokeeAncestry #ScottishAncestry #Genealogy #FamilyHistory #FamilyTree #TrailOfTears #CherokeeNation #ScotsIrish #AmericanBloodlines